13 Chapter 13: Buried

“They used their giant machineries to clear us out of the way. We fought hard. Believe me, we did our best. we tried talking it over but they turned a blind eye on our pleas, so we did not have a choice but to use our spears and arrows against them. Unlike us, they have well-developed weaponry, mammoth-like bulldozers, and thousands of armed individuals, ready to take down people that would block their way without hesitation. They have something we do not. They have everything we do not, but we do not hope for. We are contented of what we are and how we live peacefully among the animal kingdom as equals. But them…they want all. They do not get satisfied. They fill their hearts with something they do not own, that we, all of us do not have the right to possess and will eventually return to its rightful Owner when the right time comes.”

He looked up in the sky, his eyes filled with emotions I could not name. I noticed a tear fell in the side of his cheeks that he immediately wiped, trying to hide it. He shut his eyes for a moment and looked back at his mother.

“A volunteer doctor from an organization that said to care for us, said that Uma is not well. She told me that she has an illness, that baffles me until now. She told me the name of that particular disease Uma might have and I do not quite remember it exciting in our tribe. Maybe Uma got it the time when we went outside and, on the borders, or someone brought the disease to spread here and kill us.”

I was alarmed as confused. Why would they do that? What kind of human would do such a thing? The things he is telling me lingers more than I thought. Like I was that with them when those times are happening, making me a bit resentful to the humans that did this horrible thing to them. That is how I feel, and I know that the pain I am feeling is just empathy, but how is it like for them, for the ones that fought alongside their comrades that are now six feet deep beneath them? It is extreme pain and remorse. Unimaginable pain that only the ones present at that time knows.

“There are thousands of us, or more than that. But all died fighting for our home, men, and animal alike. For the protection of the place that fed and sheltered us when millions of people neglected us because of fear and ignorance. For the choices they chose to take because of either being strangled by the hands of power or wanting to gain percentage of profit.” He turned to his back, letting me to have a better view, his back that is full of what seemed to me are gunshot scars and slashes and cuts of something that could cut deep. He showed me several marks on his face, arms and to almost all parts of his body, next to a few that he said that he earned in his life in the jungle.

I shook my head in dismay. I am not surprised. Humans desire more than of what they already have, with or without the knowledge of what they are doing and the scariest aftermaths of their greed. I, for one, was guilty. And I do not have the right to judge nor say shame to them. Because after all, whether we like it or not, we came to a point in our lives that we did the same or something close to that. Like a lie, there are no good or bad lies. A lie is a lie.

The silence stayed for a long time and the longer it stayed, the longer I felt the weight it bears. The thoughts and questions that lingered inside my head are incomparable to the thoughts and questions of the abused. The smoke in the air, their pet birds, the squeak of the hand-woven hammocks in the huts, their barred rights, muffled cries, sad eyes, tightened lips, and the human-to-inhumane battle scars from several years ago.

“You know it is more of a jungle outside of the exact jungle; more of a survival game than life.” He suddenly mumbled out of nowhere but spoke the unheard truths of humanity.

I suddenly had a trip down the memory lane, the moment I learned about their existence and how they live in harmony amongst the creatures of the earth. How they live long inside the forest and in the process of unfolding the mysteries we lack the knowledge of, without harming it and instead coexisting with them. Respecting what they cannot take, aiming only for what they need, and giving back for support. The cycle, so basic, yet so hard to maintain and achieve in the lives of the more knowing.

Six people. That is how many of them are left. They are the remaining least of a whole, the last of their blood. And if they die, so as all of what lived alongside them; their culture, language, traditions, sustainable ways of living, alternative ways to cultivate gardens, instruments and how to play them, their contributions in maintaining what we enjoy today, their entire history, and maybe the forest itself and every living creature living in it might die too.

The longer I stayed there. the more I learned about their kind and what took place several years ago that changed everything in this side of the world, including the real identity of the fiend and how he tried to hide the truth about his cruel nature.

“My family fought with all their remaining strength. The people of power and corrupted mind, blinded by the false security of money, bulldozed the land to cover up the…--” He licked his lips and I saw how his adams apple bobbed as if what he is about to say is something he does not what to, in the first place.